Fort Worth Inc.'s Dream Office project - under construction in Fort Capital's West Side River District - represents a continued push into the city by Amegy Bank, which has financed the building and more than $80 million in the development.
Amegy opened its first Fort Worth branch in October in downtown's Sundance Square and has since opened a second office on South Hulen Street at the entry to the Clearfork development. The Fort Worth leadership is stacked with executives who have long ties to the city. The Houston-based bank, however, isn't new to the market, estimating it's served Fort Worth for 17 years and provided $200 million in financing to several key projects: Texas and Pacific Lofts, Whiskey Ranch, Elan West 7th Luxury Apartments, Elan River District Apartments and Elan Crockett Row Apartments.
The bank expects to add several branches in the market over the next five years, Sarah Mayer Jackson, senior vice president and commercial real estate manager for Amegy in Fort Worth, said. "We're going to be really strategic about how we do that," she said.
The Dream Office is a three-story, 22,000-square-foot building underway at White Settlement Road and Nursery Lane in The River District, a mixed-use development of Fort Capital, led by CEO Chris Powers. PRIM Construction is the general contractor; The Beck Group is architect; Royer Commercial is designing the common areas. The building, the second office building that Fort Capital is putting up in The River District, is expected to be completed later this year.
Amegy and Powers were introduced in 2013, after Powers assembled a large portion of the Linwood neighborhood west of Montgomery Plaza and sold it to Elan developer Greystar, Amegy's client. Amegy later refinanced the loan on the first office building that Powers built in The River District and provided the financing for Greystar's recently completed Elan apartment community in the district.
Of The River District, "a lot of folks have done this on the Near Southside, but not to the scale" of The River District, Brandon Bledsoe, Amegy's Fort Worth market president, says. The River District financing falls within the realm of the "catalyst projects" Amegy has financed in Fort Worth, and it typifies the kind of urban infill project that Amegy has been financing across the state. "We do well with that project across Texas," Mayer Jackson said. "We understand that space." Said Bledsoe: "We're blending the past with the opportunities of the future."